Make what you love what you do

I realized a long time ago that you can do a great deal to change your situation by having a positive attitude and approach to each day. Sounds pretty simple but it makes all the difference in the world. What made it real for me was thinking of each day as if it were my last. It is almost a binary change. You wake up one morning and see the world in a whole new way. You are appreciative, thankful and take absolutely nothing for granted. Everyday is a gift and when given one more chance (another 24 hours) to make a difference you live life to the fullest. You analyze everything you are doing, how you react to the world around you, where you spend your time, who you spend it with, how much you save for yourself. Time becomes more important than anything else because you cannot get it back once you spend it.

Another amazing positive by product of this new thinking is that you start to worry less about things you cannot control. You don’t mind so much when bad luck strikes, you look at it differently, it is just life and not luck. You don’t mind the jerks of the earth you encounter (something just like this happened to me with an overzealous TSA at SFO), instead you feel bad for them because they do not see things the way you do. With only 24 hours to live you simply say to yourself I do not have time to get upset about any of that and you focus on only the important things, family, friends, learning, expressing your creativity or skills in work that you love. You live life.

Since I am far from a prophet, spiritual leader or even a good writer I like to support my points with great quotes from great people. One of my favorites comes from the Yoda of our time the Dalai Lama. When speaking about man he says “he lives as if he is never going to die”.

“Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

This is AMAZING. How can someone say it so well? I guess that is why he is the Lama.

The lesson here is to realize how important this commitment is to your soul searching journey. This is one of the critical first steps in the process and it will help to build a incredibly strong foundation for finding your life purpose.